185 Days In - Tea's Up

I have taken to having a spot of tea of an afternoon; poured from the tea-pot, naturally; often accompanied by a small slice of sponge.

High tea is a truly wonderful thing.

When at university, my house-chum commented, whilst sipping on a hot cup of English Breakfast, that I never made tea for her, and that she was always making tea for me. My response was that I did not care for tea that much, and that I would gratefully accept her offers as it meant a break and no-doubt a hearty chat.

Now, come five hours following noon-time, I will place a brimming kettle on the hob and call to all that tea will soon be ready.

It is now the tenth of November. Which means that the fifth of November has been and gone, vanishing into the past as though it were of no significance at all. Gunpowder treason being well and truly “forgot” by this household, this year.

When I lamented to Chris, pulling an ever-so-slightly childlike face, and thinking of all the jollity we would be missing out on, he retorted that we never did anything to mark the day in the past, anyway.

This is simply not true.

Wrapping up and trudging out into the cold, so that I can have my face burnt by a bonfire, while my toes slowly freeze, and my neck goes stiff from looking up at fireworks, is one of the things that I live for. I have never let a Guy Fawkes night pass us by without so much as a sparkler, before.

But Chris seems to be forgetting a few things that made us British.

The worst of these, is his accent. Without a doubt the most unattractive sound in the American accent is the way they say the “you“ sound. Like it is a double O.

Now it is winter we will be having stoo; Chris has dooal nationality; characters on T.V. claim they are not stoopid; we got a noo car…I could go on and on and on.

Chris’ Mom, having got out of this habit in her twenty years of living in G.B. has slipped right back into it - and her little son is following suit.

The first slip came pretty early, when we were doing background work and he referred to the stoodio. As he had mentioned that he was keen to keep his English accent, I was very happy to jump on this; and what followed was ten minutes of Chris trying to get it right again.

This has been followed by other mistakes; but his tolerance of giving in to me is waning, either that or it is just too much like hard work.

Granted there are a few words that Chris has always said in the American way: tomato, oregano… But he has taken to responding “I always said it like that” when I might mention that no, he wasn’t frustrated, but frustrated.

I am all for fitting in while we are here in the United States, but there is something special about being a little unique. And, more importantly, I’ll be damned if I let any of my Great British standards fall.

So if you’ll excuse me, I just need to pop the kettle on.